How can understanding consumer behaviour make fashion more sustainable?

Whitson-Smith, Jade (2013) How can understanding consumer behaviour make fashion more sustainable? In: Crafting the Future: 10th European Academy of Design Conference, 17-19th April 2013, Gothenburg, Sweden.

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Abstract

Most research into sustainable fashion design has focused on the area of supply and production, 
whilst under‐emphasising the importance of demand in the garment material economy. More 
specifically, effort has been focused on reducing the impact of materials and manufacturing whilst 
the consumer use‐stage of a garments lifecycle (e.g. frequency of wear, retention and disposal) has 
been downplayed. 
 
Design decisions have a direct impact on consumer use and garment life‐cycle. Documenting and 
researching the consumer experience provides an opportunity to evaluate where changes towards 
sustainability can be made which address consumer behaviour, habits, and perceptions.  
 
A study including consumer wardrobe audits and interviews has been carried out as the preliminary 
data gathering stage of this research. The aim of this study is to deepen understanding of consumer 
behaviour while feeding that information to the designer in order to make fashion more sustainable. 
A series of scenarios that highlight how consumer use behaviour could be integrated into the design 
process have been explored.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NK Decorative arts Applied arts Decoration and ornament
Schools:	School of Art, Design and Architecture
Related URLs:	Conference
Depositing User:	Jade Whitson-Smith
Date Deposited:	17 Apr 2014 10:42
Last Modified:	28 Mar 2018 14:30
URI:	http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/20008

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